Are England really favourites for CT17?

[vcs]

I think he's a physicist IRL.

 

[SL Bada]

ENG should be very disappointed if they can't win one out of this CT and the next WC with that batting line up and home advantage.

 

[Furball]

I wonder how many 300+ scores SA will need to concede before the idea their bowling attack is inherently better than ours fades away?

Took it as a given because so many other people did I think. Then they turned up. Rabada is a class act. Rest of the pace attack not so much. Phelukwayo, Morris and Parnell are not scary and not better than England's ODI seamers.

Over-rating South Africa is the done thing round these parts.

 

[CricAddict]

If Stokes cannot bowl, that will be a big hit for England as he is their 6th bowler. They might have to bring in Willey for Rashid and expect Root to fill in.

Roy Hales Root Morgan Buttler Stokes Moeen Woakes Plunkett Willey Wood

 

[Long-Hop]

If Stokes cannot bowl, that will be a big hit for England as he is their 6th bowler. They might have to bring in Willey for Rashid and expect Root to fill in.

Roy Hales Root Morgan Buttler Stokes Moeen Woakes Plunkett Willey Wood

Willey has taken 4 wickets in his last 10 ODIs, not a bad ER of a little under 6rpo, but is not bowling even 7 overs all that often. As someone being used mostly just as a bowler ie not high enough up the order to count much as an all-rounder, his form and use seem to defy logic selecting him.

England have picked three batsmen-keeper, this is not terribly clever use of the squad although Bairstow could and arguably should be playing even without the gloves. Buttler in spite of his recent unbeaten fifty has scored just 118 runs at 16.86 in his last 8 ODI inns at near enough a run a ball, not exactly top form even if scored quickly enough.

Stokes is an injury worry, bowled 9-10 overs in just 3 of his last 14 ODIs and those were consecutive ODIs. His 11 wickets @ 490 in those ODIs is far from stellar, his batting form of 2 hundreds, 5 fifties and a couple of other scores of 40+ in that time is more than enough but he can't really be played as a batsman alone, surely?

England have two spin options, with Ali in the side there is a chance they won't use Rashid, and with Stokes an injury worry England might not feel Ali and Rashid is viable.

And someone please bring in Bairstow for Roy, the latter has scored a mere 50 runs @ 8.33 in his last 6 innings and at an SR of 59.53. It's bad enough he's not hitting runs, but the one time he might have taken his time (3rd ODI vs SAF) he didn't and 2 other times he has so to bat slowly and not score (many) runs in ODIs is just criminal.



So quite how England are favourites is a mystery. Maybe the names impress, plus that stat cricinfo came out with which worked up until the aforementioned 3rd ODI of England scoring lots of big scores - 10 in a row batting 1st, lowest was 296 (not now it isn't!) Problem is they didn't cite that England still managed to lose TWO of them! Or mention that 300 is not exactly a rare score these days


England could pick the line up Hales, Bairstow, Root, Morgan, Stokes, Buttler, Ali, Woakes, Plunkett, Wood and Ball

 

[Long-Hop]

And that win over NZ has to be taken with a grain of salt. England won the series 3-2 but had Mitchell Santner (who is a world-class fieldsman) not dropped a sitter off Bairstow in the 5ht and deciding match, NZ would have won that series.

You could argue South Africa should have beaten England 2-1 in this most recent series had they scored the 7 runs off the final over as was there for the taking with wickets in hand. As decent an over as Wood bowled, the two South African batsmen were set, they looked lacking in urgency in their running, and should have tried something different like coming down the pitch.

I just felt they looked like they thought they would win and didn't have the balls at any stage to secure the victory - in two senses, the second being they ran out of. Had the bowler executed some very fine Yorkers, bouncers and a lot of clever deliveries you could argue it was a "brilliant" (BBC) over, that's not to say he didn't bowl accurately but South Africa's failure to win was more down to them than the bowling.

 

[honestbharani]

Wont England be better served by dropping Ali for Willey? Root can provide the offspin. .

 

[Black_Warrior]

Ali also makes the difference between 280 and 340 though

1st ODI: England v South Africa at Leeds, May 24, 2017 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo

 

[Heboric]

Over-rating South Africa is the done thing round these parts.

Well England better win this time, they have choked so many times.

 

[theegyptian]

You could argue South Africa should have beaten England 2-1 in this most recent series had they scored the 7 runs off the final over as was there for the taking with wickets in hand. As decent an over as Wood bowled, the two South African batsmen were set, they looked lacking in urgency in their running, and should have tried something different like coming down the pitch.

I just felt they looked like they thought they would win and didn't have the balls at any stage to secure the victory - in two senses, the second being they ran out of. Had the bowler executed some very fine Yorkers, bouncers and a lot of clever deliveries you could argue it was a "brilliant" (BBC) over, that's not to say he didn't bowl accurately but South Africa's failure to win was more down to them than the bowling.

You could argue that England would have won in SA if Rashid had caught a sitter of Morris (when Eng were 2-1 up). But they didn't. None of these odi series really matter though.
You could argue that SA had the advantage of winning every toss in this series.
Or that England weren't really that bothered by the third game having won the series already.

 

[theegyptian]

Well England better win this time, they have choked so many times.

It's quite a big tournament for England and SA but I would suggest moreso for SA.

SA are ranked number 1 in the rankings, Rabada and De Villiers are number 1 bowler and bat in world, tahir 2, de kock4, faf 6 and amla 10.

SA also are in the earlier group.

SA go out in bad style again with all their highly rated players and people will ask why does this always happen.

For England it's their first 50 over tournament with most of this squad. They don't have the best players or team. It's only two years since they were terrible. They absolutely know that they need to keep finding better bowlers regardless of what happens in the tournament. Whatever happen for England I don't think it will be a disaster. They are a work in progress.
They are however at home which is an advantage and certainly puts them among the favourites - and they have targeted this tournament.

 

[Heboric]

It's quite a big tournament for England and SA but I would suggest moreso for SA.

SA are ranked number 1 in the rankings, Rabada and De Villiers are number 1 bowler and bat in world, tahir 2, de kock4, faf 6 and amla 10.

SA also are in the earlier group.

SA go out in bad style again with all their highly rated players and people will ask why does this always happen.

For England it's their first 50 over tournament with most of this squad. They don't have the best players or team. It's only two years since they were terrible. They absolutely know that they need to keep finding better bowlers regardless of what happens in the tournament. Whatever happen for England I don't think it will be a disaster. They are a work in progress.
They are however at home which is an advantage and certainly puts them among the favourites - and they have targeted this tournament.

With the amount of ODI cricket played 2 years is plenty of time to rebuild a team especially when 6 of the players who played that game against Bangladesh are still in the team.

I just hope that IF England dont win, that English media/supporters dont wheel out the old "We were never good at limited over cricket anyways" line to defend another choke

 

[StephenZA]

It's quite a big tournament for England and SA but I would suggest moreso for SA.

SA are ranked number 1 in the rankings, Rabada and De Villiers are number 1 bowler and bat in world, tahir 2, de kock4, faf 6 and amla 10.

SA also are in the earlier group.

SA go out in bad style again with all their highly rated players and people will ask why does this always happen.

For England it's their first 50 over tournament with most of this squad. They don't have the best players or team. It's only two years since they were terrible. They absolutely know that they need to keep finding better bowlers regardless of what happens in the tournament. Whatever happen for England I don't think it will be a disaster. They are a work in progress.
They are however at home which is an advantage and certainly puts them among the favourites - and they have targeted this tournament.

It is not our highly rated players that are the problem it is the unrated players.... to win a tournament you need for the team to perform and possibly some of the 'less' rated players to hold up their hands. Miller, Duminy, Morris, Parnell etc have to perform, they perform then SA have a real chance. Or else we rely on our top 4 to get runs and 2 bowlers (3 if we play Morkel) to do all the work, never going to win in those conditions.

This is what makes Eng so strong some great players, good batting down to 7/8 and good bowling out from 6 players potentially. Maybe nobody that will run through a line up for you consistently, but players that will always contribute something.

 

[91Jmay]

With the amount of ODI cricket played 2 years is plenty of time to rebuild a team especially when 6 of the players who played that game against Bangladesh are still in the team.

I just hope that IF England dont win, that English media/supporters dont wheel out the old "We were never good at limited over cricket anyways" line to defend another choke

Saffers talking about a choke. We also got to T20 final and won a T20 final, so I think we've proven a bit more than Saffers over last decade in ICC tournaments.

 

[Heboric]

Saffers talking about a choke. We also got to T20 final and won a T20 final, so I think we've proven a bit more than Saffers over last decade in ICC tournaments.

Poms so desperate to try convince everybody that they have never choked . It reminds me a lot of this bloke:

 

[Black_Warrior]

This is a pretty silly debate. Neither England nor South Africa have been particularly great ODI sides during the World Cups they crashed out of.

You can perhaps make a case for 92 and 99 when they were for most part the superior side, only to lose when it mattered. Other than that, it's just two average to below average sides getting beaten by better sides

 

[cnerd123]

Also SA and NZ both choked in that semi final, it was ultimately Grant 'Balls of Steel' Elliot who won the game for the kiwis. And ironically enough, he's a South African.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Old man Dan just oozed cool late in that game when AB and Steyn were ****ting their pants.

 

[Daemon]

Sorry but Morkel isn't a quality ODI bowler. Rabada the only quality one, Tahir is good but won't be a big factor in this tournament. Phehlukwayo is bang average, Morris is decent.

It's a meh attack. Would be ahead of England's because of Rabada but the rest aren't much better at all.

Morkel's probably better than all except Woakes.

 

[Black_Warrior]

Morkel's probably better than all except Woakes.

A couple of years back, Morkel was probably one of the best ODI fast bowlers.